interesting though rather tame in his _Considerations on the Manners of
this Century_; there was Grimm, an acute and subtle critic of the highest
intelligence in his _Correspondence_; then Condillac, precise,
systematic, restrained, but infinitely clear in the best of diction in
his _Treatise on the Sensations_; finally Turgot, the philosophical
economist, in his _Treatise on the Formation and Distribution of
Wealth_.

BUFFON; MARMONTEL; DELILLE.--Philosophy, meditation on great problems,
filled almost all the literary horizon, while scientific literature
embraced a score of illustrious representatives, of which the most
impressive was Buffon, with his _Natural History_. Nevertheless, in
absolute literature there were also names to cite: Marmontel gave his
_Moral Tales_, his _Belisarius_, his _Incas_, and his _Elements of
Literature_.

Delille, with his translation in verse of the _Georgics_ of Virgil,
commenced a noble poetic career which he pursued until the nineteenth
century; Gilbert wrote some mordant satires which recalled Boileau, and
some farewells to life which are among the best lyrics; Saint
Lambert sang of _The Seasons_ with felicity, and Roucher treated the same
theme with more vivid sensibility.

THE STAGE.--On the stage, a little before 1750. Gresset gave his
_Wicked Man_, which was witty and in such felicitous metre that it
carried the tradition of great comedy in verse; Diderot, theorist and
creator of the drama in prose, followed La Chaussee, and produced _The
Father of a Family_, _The Natural Son_, and _Is He Good, Is He Bad_? being
the portrait of himself. Innumerable dramas by the fertile Mercier and a
score of others followed, including Beaumarchais, himself a devotee of